I fully agree with this, particularly after I realized it's actually incredibly easy to hard-counter a low-level Solarian right now: just pick a Barathu, give them a gun, and put them 35 feet above ground. I would go as far as to say that the Solarian should be given a fly Speed at 1st level, just to be able to deal with this kind of situation, and that's something that could easily be addressed with a compatibility note for Pathfinder where instead you get a status bonus to Speed or something.
Beyond being able to maneuver anywhere, I think the Solarian's 1st-level manifestation always ought to be a gapcloser of some kind. Graviton Solarians have this covered already to some extent (though it'd probably be better to pull one creature from much farther away as a single action), but photon and hybrid Solarians don't. In my opinion, photon Solarians ought to start with some kind of "speed of light" ability that lets you move incredible distances instantly, without triggering reactions and dealing damage to enemies you pass through, and hybrid solarians ought to have some combination of movement and enemy crowd control.
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Interestingly two of them have mobility enhancement baked in.
Degradadation arrangment solarians (Graviton themed) get flight equal to their speed at 9th level (so long as they're graviton attuned)
Radiant arragnement (Photon themed) get a +10 foot speed buff while photon attuned at 9th level. This feels weak compared to flight. but...
The Balanced Arragnement's advanced revelation (9th level feature like above) is just a reaction to not become unattuned.
I think the Balanced arrangement should be replaced (or enhanced) by the +10ft bonus from Radiant's current version without the attunement limitation.
And Radiant's should be replaced with a teleport with a range up to their movement speed.